Ascend 910C AI Chip: HUAWEI’s Ambitious Plan for Mass Production in 2025
Chinese tech giant HUAWEI is pushing forward with its plan to mass produce its most advanced artificial intelligence chip, the Ascend 910C, in the first quarter of 2025. This comes despite ongoing struggles with chip yield – the percentage of functional chips produced – due to U.S. restrictions on technology exports.
The Ascend 910C is designed to compete with offerings from leading U.S. AI chipmaker Nvidia. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that HUAWEI has already begun sending samples of the chip to potential customers and taking pre-orders.
However, HUAWEI faces a significant hurdle in the form of U.S. trade restrictions. The ongoing friction between the U.S. and China has limited HUAWEI’s access to advanced chipmaking technologies, impacting the yield rate of its AI chips. While commercially viable chips typically have a yield of over 70%, the Ascend 910C, manufactured by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) using an N+2 process, is currently achieving a yield of only around 20%, according to a source briefed on the results.
This low yield rate plagued HUAWEI’s previous-generation AI chip, the 910B, as well. The SMIC-made 910B achieved a yield of only 50%, forcing HUAWEI to significantly reduce production targets and delay fulfilling orders.
Despite these challenges, HUAWEI’s determination to achieve self-sufficiency in advanced chip production is evident. The company’s push to mass produce the Ascend 910C is a significant step towards breaking its reliance on U.S. technology in the AI chip market.
